Alfa's last message

Alfa's last message

Muhammad Alfaridzhi, or Alfa as he was better known, died on
Monday night in an East Jakarta hospital's intensive care unit
after a brain operation failed to save his life. A professional
boxer, Alfa died after he was knocked out in the eighth round of
a 10-round boxing match against Kongtawat Ora of Thailand last
Friday. The 23 year old never regained consciousness.

Alfa is not the first professional Indonesian boxer to die in
the ring recently. Three others, Akbar Maulana, Dipo Saloko and
John Namtilu, went before him. Two others survived but only after
undergoing brain surgery.

Unlike those who died before him, though, Alfa's death caused
a stir not only in boxing circles in this country, but among the
public at large as well -- not to mention the grief which Alfa's
death caused his close friends and family.

How is this difference in the public's reaction to be
explained? Boxing, like the gladiator matches of ancient Rome, is
not only a sport -- if indeed pitching two people against each
other to see who can best and quickest beat the other unconscious
can still be called a sport -- it is also, and is perhaps first
and foremost, show business. And Alfa had all the makings of a
popular boxing star. He was personally well-liked, was fairly
good-looking and had an aggressive boxing style with a string of
knock-out victories to his credit.

It seems, though, that the day of Alfa's death was a bad day
for the local boxing scene. There have been claims that Alfa had
been out of form for some time and should not have been allowed
to fight. "I saw from Alfaridzhi's last three fights that his
physical fitness had been decreasing," said Mahadi Sinambela, a
former state minister of youth affairs and sports. "He probably
suffered from cumulative injuries in his final bout. Obviously,
he couldn't take the hard punches."

Ferdiansyah, a Golkar Party legislator and member of House of
Representatives Commission VI for religious affairs and human
resources, expressed more or less the same opinion.

The Indonesian Boxing Commission (KTI) must make a medical
check of a boxer's condition before he steps into the ring and
after a bout. Furthermore, in the case of someone who has been
knocked out, a certain period, usually four to six months, must
elapse before the boxer is allowed back into the ring.

Could it be that in Alfa's case, and perhaps in others as
well, these factors were ignored because the show must go on?
Both the Indonesian Boxing Promoters Association (Gaprotin) and
the Indonesian Boxing Commission plan to meet this weekend to
investigate this latest boxing tragedy. Tapes will be studied to
detect anything that could have gone wrong.

"We're not going to blame any particular party, but rather we
want to ensure that it won't happen again," Gaprotin chairman
Tourino Tidar said. But how does Gaprotin expect to do that?

For Alfa's family, the answer is clear. They are withdrawing
from professional boxing and closing down the Anak Bandung boxing
club "until KTI improves its rules".

Other people, though, have different answers. "I won't stop
promoting (boxing) due to this accident," said boxing promoter
Daniel Bahari. "Instead, it (this accident) will attract
attention because Alfa was a hero to the people of Bandung. I
will miss him. People may be disappointed with his death, but I
am more disappointed because I was the promoter. I couldn't stop
the fight."

So there is some hope that, at the very least, Alfa's death
will lead to substantial improvements in the way boxing is
managed and organized. If safety rules can be properly put in
place and supervised in other sports -- automotive sports is a
good example -- why not in boxing?

But that is only the minimum that Indonesia's sports officials
can do. Elsewhere, in a growing number of countries in the
civilized world boxing is banned. Perhaps, with the growing
appreciation of the principle of human dignity, Indonesians too
will eventually come to regard boxing in the same manner -- not
as a sport but as a degrading contest between two people, staged
for the benefit of a paying public.